A Lifetime of Lies
by desy
Summary: 1970: More than half a year had past since Mrs. Parker’s suicide. By accident young Jarod finds out what The Centre really does with his sims - and runs away. But he is not the only one that chooses to leave The Centre behind and to find out the truth...
1. Chapter 1

**Part:** 1  
**Author:** desy  
**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. The show 'The Pretender' and all its characters belong to NBC and TNT.  
**Summarie: **(1970)More than half a yearhad past since Mrs. Parker's suicide. By accident young Jarod finds out what the Centre really does with his sims – they kill people. He decides to flee and Miss Parker and Angelo join him on his search for the truth of his/their past.  
**A/N:** This is a 'what if' story: What if Jarod had run away as a child in 1970 with Miss Parker and Angelo in tow?

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Chapter 1

_The Centre  
Blue Cove, Delaware  
November, 1970_

A boy went slowly down a grey concrete hallway and stopped in front of a vent entrance. He looked around, verifying that no one saw him. Then he crawled up into the vent and followed the tunnel until a fork came into his sight. There a brown haired girl kneeled and crumbed a sheet of paper. Opposite her a younger boy with brown-blond hair lay flat on his stomach and was happily chewing on chocolate.

When the dark haired boy neared the other children and sat down next to him, only the boy looked up to him and said: "Miss Parker frustrated."

"And why are you frustrated, Miss Parker?" he asked and watched the girl sighing heavily.

"I don't have time, Jarod. I have a paper presentation tomorrow and I have not the least inkling on how to do that." finally Miss Parker looked up. "I wanna have the best presentation in class. Maybe when I get an A on my paper, Daddy would finally speak to me and praise me."

Jarod knew his friend was desperately searching for acceptance by her father, but curiosity won the better of him. "I can help you. What's a paper presentation?"

Miss Parker's gaze met the bright reassuring smile of her best friend and a small smile appeared on her face. If someone else had asked her that question she would had answered 'odd duck' or 'are you kidding me', but she knew that the two boys had never left the Centre and therefore normal things like a 'paper presentation' or 'chocolate' were strange to them. "Really you will help me?" On his nodding she continued. "On a paper presentation you get marks in school. You have to write an essay about some topic and recite it in front of the class."

"And what's your problem?"

"My problem is that I have never done something like this before. Normally Momma would hel- " her voice became a whisper, when the horrible pictures of her dead mother in that elevator flashed in her mind.

Jarod saw the girl's sadness and wanted to change the subject. "What's your topic, Parker?"

"I have to sum up some news paper articles about the most important things that had happened the last week."

"That doesn't sound so hard. Do you have the articles?"

The brunette opened her school bag and retrieved a heap of news papers. She laid them in front of her two friends. "I dunno, what articles are important."

Jarod took the first paper and leafed through it. After some moments he said: "I don't think the story about the dog that saved his owner after a car accident is so important for your paper. Through it's cute. But the one with the current changes in social health care system seems important. It also is in the headlines of the other news paper."

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Two hours had past and Miss Parker was writing down the words and numbers Jarod dictated her, while he was looking into the last news paper, the one from the present-day. Suddenly he stopped and starred on an article on the first site.

"Jarod? What is?"

His gaze still rested on the sheet of paper, when he read aloud. "164 people dead, hundreds injured after terrorist assault with poison gas on city mall."

"Oh, yaeh, that was on the news on the tv. The terrorists used some type of new poison, that was gluing the lungs immediately. That's cruel."

The dark haired boy was analysing the new information and remembered a sim he'd done a year before. Then his order was to develop a new gas for military operations that would kill the other soldiers within few seconds.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder and his gaze broke away from the headlines.

"What is it, genius?" asked Miss Parker when her friend finally looked into her blue orbs.

After a moment his shocked expression disappeared. "Nothing. We should continue."

The girl exchanged a concerned look with the younger boy Angelo, but then went back to her writing.

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Soon they were finished and Miss Parker was practicing the presentation. After she said the last sentence, Jarod began to applaud and Angelo followed his example.

"Just don't forget to speak slow, but not too slow." He remembered her.

"I won't." A big smile plastered her features and she stepped closer to Jarod and hugged him. "Thank you. I wouldn't know what to do without you."

He was hugging her back and smiled, glad that he could make her happy. After they released each other, he sat next to her and whispered in a low voice. "Miss Parker, would you do me a favour?"

Irritated by his change of behaviour she answered with a "What?".

"Do you have any access to news archives?"

"At the library."

Jarod took her pencil and an empty sheet of paper and began writing. "Could you look up following situations and if you find something similar in the news archives, would you write a summary down for me. With date and location."

Now curious, Miss Parker took the instructions. "Yeah. But for what purpose? – What do you have in mind, Jarod?"

"I will tell you. Promise." He smiles reassuring, one of those smiles she couldn't say no.

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_The next day_

"Jarod! Jarod! I got an A!" Miss Parker was running down the last steps of the catwalk to the area in front of the sim rooms. There the two boys were already waiting for her and as soon as she was near Jarod, she slung her arms around his neck, squeezing him joyfully.

"That's great Miss Parker."

Angelo stood next to the two, watching them for a moment, before he joined their hugging. When Miss Parker and Jarod each felt his hands on their backs, they loosed their grip around eachother and moved their now free arms around the younger boy.

After some moments they moved away from each other and the girl showed the mark to her friends. "Thank you, Jarod. I can't wait to show Daddy."

"Why don't you show it to him now?" asked Jarod and walked to a vent entrance.

"He's in a briefing the whole day. Maybe he'll have time tonight to eat supper with me and then I'll show him." The brunette crawled behind the boys to their secret refuge in the Centre's vent system.

"That's a good idea, Parker." Jarod became serious and spoke again with low voice. "Could you go and search for the things I'd asked for?"

Miss Parker slid nearer to her friend. "I told Mike, the sweeper, who picks me up from school every day, that I have to make some research in the library for another school project."

"Good. And?"

"He drove me to the library and I looked for the stuff you wanted for more than three hours." She paused and an evil smile appeared on her face, when she saw that expectation was tearing her friend up. She slid her hand into her skirt pocket and retrieved some handwritten sheets of paper. "And I found almost everything, you had asked for." She said proud. Her smile faded when his face was pure shock and he took the information out of her hands.

His eyes were scanning the summaries of catastrophes, numbers popping into his eyes – 98; 217; 355; 139; 42 – numbers of the people that died in assaults and plane crashes.

Angelo grasped the sheet of paper in his friend's hand. "Jarod fears the truth."

"What truth, Angelo?" asked the brunette.

"Lies."

Confused Miss Parker concentrated on Jarod. "Jarod? Earth to genius? Are you there?" She moved her hand in front of his eyes and he came back to his senses. "Why did you want to know about these bad incidents? Whence did you know about them at all?"

His brown eyes were finally meeting hers. "I didn't know about them."

"What is it, Jarod? You promised me to tell."

He swallowed and his gaze went to Angelo, then back to the girl next to him. "All those incidents were once sims, I did. I was the one who invented the poison gas that glued the victim's lungs, I was the one, who developed the new explosive, I was th-"His voice cracked and tears ran down his red cheeks." Sydney told me, it was for a good purpose, to save people – not to kill innocents."

Miss Parker was shocked, when she realised what he was saying. She was like frozen – unable to move - to comfort him.

"I didn't want this to happen. You have to believe me. I didn't want this." He sobbed.

Angelo was the first who slung his arms around the older boy's shoulders. Some moments later, Miss Parker did the same.

She held Jarod even closer, when she heard him repeat those words over and over. He sobbed desperately into her shoulder and she ran her hand trough his short brown, almost black hair. "I believe you." She finally announced.

Minutes past and the young pretender calmed down. Miss Parker took out her handkerchief and gave it to him. "Thanks."

Unsure what to say the girl stroke his back. "Are… are you sure?"

He simply nodded.

Angelo moved a little away from his friends. "Only lies. Centre bad. Centre evil. Evil people. Only lies."

"Who orders those sims? Who knows about their purpose?" asked Miss Parker.

Jarod had a hunch on who it might be, but he wanted Miss Parker to hear it with her own ears. "I will ask Sydney. Tomorrow after the sim. Promise me to come and wait for me on front of the sim room. … And listen."

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**A/N:** Tell me how you liked it. Shall I continue?

REVIEW PLEASE


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**: Thanks for the reviews:

NG: I hope you'll also like this chapter and I also hope you'll update your fanfic 'Survival' soon :-)

Thanks to my other, but anonymous, reviewer. Do you have a better summary for this fanfiction, since you had to convince yourself to read it. Suggestions welcomed.

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Chapter 2

"Good work, Jarod." Sydney laid his hand on the boy's shoulder, before he looked up to the glass door, where Miss Parker stood. She was leaning with her back against the wall next to the entrance. "Seems someone is waiting for you. You can go now."

Before the psychiatrist could turn away, the boy stopped him. "Emm, Sydney. I have a question."

"What is it, Jarod?"

"Do you know, who gives the orders for the sims, Sydney?" Jarod looked directly in his mentor's eyes.

"The Tower does."

"And who is the Tower?"

"Few people who are running the Centre. The Tower's chairman is Miss Parker's father, Mr. Parker." Informed Sydney, confused about the boy's sudden interest in that subject.

"So, Mr. Parker knows about all sims and projects and their purpose?"

Hesitating a second the doctor answered. "So it is, Jarod. … Why this question?"

Jarod shrugged "Just so. I just wondered." With that the boy turned around and went to the door and his waiting friend.

When he opened the door and saw Miss Parker's face, he knew she had heard every word. He gently took her by the arm and led her away to a vent entrance. They crawled some metres into the small tunnel and the girl sat down.

Jarod sat next to her. "You heard what Syd said."

She just nodded and swallowed hard. After some minutes she finally began speaking. "Yesterday evening, at home…. Daddy and I were watching News on television… and they brought pictures of hundreds of people dead or injured… because of an explosion of a fireworks warehouse somewhere in Mexico…. They showed the corpse of children of the school next to it and their mothers crying. I said how sad that is, but Dad just answered that's how the world is… and that those incidents would antagonize the world's overpopulation." The girl looked up, tears streaming down her face. "And Daddy's eyes were cold, when he said that. …. How can someone say something so cruel, Jarod? And really mean it?" Sobbing she hugged her legs, burying her red face in her knees.

Jarod watched her for a moment, her desperate tears saddening him. Then he reached his hand out to her and began gently stroking her back, unable to say anything to comfort her.

Minutes past and her sobs subsided to mere whimpers. She looked up and her red and puffy eyes met the pretender's ones. Her voice was steady and emphatic. "Dad is able to order the sims to kill people. … Who is my father?" She desperately searched for her answer in the boy's brown eyes, but found only sadness in them. The brunette knew, this particular sadness was always evident in Jarod's eyes, even when he laughed. Normally she would look the other way, pretending to not see it – but now she couldn't turn away from her only friend in the world – not any more – not after what her father had done.

Her hand reached for his face, cupping his warm cheek. "You miss your parents, Jarod, don't you?"

Immediately his eyes searched his lap. It was the first time Miss Parker had mentioned his parents, his soft spot. His voice was unsteady, almost cracking. "My parents are dead." Jarod was surprised to feel the girl's hand slip down to his chin and slowly lifting his head. He was even more astonished to see her former tear streamed featured plastered with a light promising smile.

"Who, told you this? Sydney? The Centre? Have you seen their dead bodies with your own eyes?"

Jarod slowly shook his head.

"Then, why do you still believe they are dead? Maybe it's a lie. A lie like everything else here at the Centre." Miss Parker's smile grew, when she saw something new in his eyes – hope.

Jarod watched the pretty features of the girl before him and pondered her words. Something inside him felt lighter than ever before. It dawned him that she might be right, that the red haired woman he sees in his dreams was still alive – somewhere out there in the world.

The brunette saw many different emotions creep on the boy's face, then noticing his jaw tighten, she knew he had something in mind. "Jarod, what are you planning?"

Cautiously the young pretender began crawling down the dark tunnel, deeper into the viscera of the Centre, signalling Miss Parker to follow him. When he finally reached a place he considered as save from the secret ears and eyes, that were hidden everywhere, he sat down and whispered in a low voice, Miss Parker had a hard time to even hear. "I'm going."

"Going?!" Her puzzlement disappeared from her features and her eyes widened, when she understood the meaning of his words. "You are leaving The Centr-" Before she could finish her sentence, his hand was over her mouth.

"Shhh. Whisper." Jarod removed his hand, since she had calmed down from her shock. "Yes."

"But you can't… where are you going to go?" She felt panic rise in her body, her stomach began to hurt. "You don't know the world outside the Centre."

"Then I will learn the world to know." Jarod kneed direct in front of her, roaming her face with his eyes. "I'm going to search for my parents."

"But…"

Recognising some of the many emotions on the girl's features as fear and worry, he wanted to make her understand his decision. "Parker, I helped killing people, innocent children and their parents. I'm not going to help the Centre murder more. I can't stay here."

Deep in thought the girl turned away, facing the metallic wall of the vent. After a while Jarod could hear a light 'When' slipped from her lips.

"Soon." Considering the sim schedule, he knew he must escape before next week's end. "Next Thursday. Then The Tower will have its weekly meeting and Raines would be out of view for at least 9.30pm. Syd usually leaves between 7pm and 7.30. So I would have two hours to get as far away from The Centre as possible." He saw her shoulders stiffen and placed his hand on one of them, but she remained starring at the wall. Sighting he moved closer and slung his arms from behind around her body, feeling the same she felt. "I don't wanna leave you, but I have no other choice. …You showed me already so much. I want you to know, you are my best friend and I will never forget you."

Not wanting to see her cry again, Jarod moved back and crawled down the duct. Only some metres in the tunnel he suddenly felt something grasp his ankle. Confused the boy turned around, only to see Miss Parker's grip at his foot. When his eyes searched for hers, she answered in her best confident voice. "You are not going to leave me behind."

"What?!" he scowled himself for his loud outburst and gazed bewildered at his friend.

The brunette slipped closer to the pretender, no tears evident on her face. "I'll come with you."

"But…"

"Are you saying you would leave me in my father's care – in the hands of a killer." Her voice cracked and her eyes were glittering, as she said the last word.

He eyed her face for a moment, seeing the resolve and pain, that made his heart ache. "OK. But you have still time to reconsider."

"There is no reconsidering."

Jarod thought for a moment and crawled down the opposite direction. "Come, Miss Parker."

"Jarod?!"

"We have to find Angelo. We can't leave him here in Raines' hands."

A smile appeared on the girl's face and she followed him.

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The last days had past like nothing and it already was the evening before Thursday. Jarod was now glad to have Miss Parker on his side and helping him. It made some things much easier to have someone smuggling almost everything needed into the Centre.

The three of them sat in their favourite place around a map of Blue Cove. The pretender moved one of his fingers from one spot of the paper to another, telling the plan once again. "Angelo and I will escape the Centre through the vent system at 7.50pm. The way to you will take us approximately 20 minutes. You will leave your father's house at 8pm and walk to the meeting point at Oak Drive. From there we'll go together to the bus station in downtown and take the coach to Cleveland that departs at 9.03pm. Don't forget the money, the bag with the clothes and food and the DSA player."

"I still don't get, why you want my Dad's DSA player, Jarod?" Miss Parker frowned and Angelo's gaze wandered from one of his friends to the other and back.

"Just take it." Somehow he didn't want her to know about his little stop in the Centre DSA archive in the time between 7.30 and 7.50. "If something goes wrong and we won't make it to you until 9 pm, you have to go back to your house, before your father comes home from the Tower meeting."

"Understood, sir." Miss Parker saluted, but couldn't oppress a grin. It was the third time that day he had told her that. She watched him folding the map and handing it back to her. Immediately she plunged it in her skirt's waist band and put her sweater over it. She gave both boys one last look, before she turned to leave the vent. "Good luck. And don't be late."

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**A/N:** If you want to read about their escape and Jarod learning to know the world outside the Centre, then PLEASE REVIEW. Reviews make me happy and when I'm happy I'll write…


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